Background: The Words-in-Noise Test (WIN) was developed as an instrument to quantify the ability of listeners to understand monosyllabic words in background noise using multitalker babble (Wilson, 2003). The 50% point, which is calculated with the Spearman-Kärber equation (Finney, 1952), is used as the evaluative metric with the WIN materials. Initially, the WIN was designed as a 70-word instrument that presented ten unique words at each of seven signal-to-noise ratios from 24 to 0 dB in 4 dB decrements. Subsequently, the 70-word list was parsed into two 35-word lists that achieved equivalent recognition performances (Wilson and Burks, 2005). This report involves the development of a third list (WIN List 3) that was developed to serve as a practice list to familiarize the participant with listening to words presented in background babble. Purpose: To determine - on young listeners with normal hearing and on older listeners with sensorineural hearing loss - the psychometric properties of the WIN List 3 materials. Research Design: A quasi-experimental, repeated-measures design was used. Study Sample: Twenty-four young adult listeners (M=21.6 yr)with normal pure-tone thresholds (≤20 dB HL at 250 to 8000 Hz) and 24 older listeners (M=65.9 yr) with sensorineural hearing loss participated. Data Collection and Analysis: The level of the babble was fixed at 80 dB SPL with the level of the words varied from 104 to 80 dB SPL in 4 dB decrements. Results: For listeners with normal hearing, the 50% points for Lists 1 and 2 were similar (4.3 and 5.1 dB S/N, respectively), both of which were lower than the 50% point for List 3 (7.4 dB S/N). A similar relation was observed with the listeners with hearing loss, 50% points for Lists 1 and 2 of 12.2 and 12.4 dB S/N, respectively, compared to 15.8 dB S/N for List 3. The differences between Lists 1 and 2 and List 3 were significant. The relations among the psychometric functions and the relations among the individual data both reflected these differences. Conclusions: The significantz3 dB difference between performances on WIN Lists 1 and 2 and on WIN List 3 by the listeners with normal hearing and the listeners with hearing loss dictates caution with the use of List 3. The use of WIN List 3 should be reserved for ancillary purposes in which equivalent recognition performances are not required, for example, as a practice list or a stand alone measure.

Background: The Speech Recognition in Noise Test (SPRINT) is a word-recognition instrument that presents the 200 Northwestern University Auditory Test No. 6 (NU-6) words binaurally at 50 dB HL in a multitalker babble at a 9 dB signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) (Cord et al, 1992). The SPRINT was developed by and used by the Army as a more valid predictor of communication abilities (than pure-tone thresholds or word-recognition in quiet) for issues involving fitness for duty from a hearing perspective of Army personnel. The Words-in-Noise test (WIN) is a slightly different word-recognition task in a fixed level multitalker babble with 10 NU-6 words presented at each of 7 S/N from 24 to 0 dB S/N in 4 dB decrements (Wilson, 2003; Wilson and McArdle, 2007). For the two instruments, both the babble and the speakers of the words are different. The SPRINT uses all 200 NU-6 words, whereas the WIN uses a maximum of 70 words. Purpose: The purpose was to compare recognition performances by 24 young listeners with normal hearing and 48 older listeners with sensorineural hearing on the SPRINT and WIN protocols. Research Design: A quasi-experimental, mixed model design was used. Study Sample: The 24 young listeners with normal hearing (19 to 29 years, mean = 23.3 years) were from the local university and had normal hearing (≤20 dB HL; American National Standards Institute, 2004) at the 250-8000 Hz octave intervals. The 48 older listeners with sensorineural hearing loss (60 to 82 years, mean = 69.9 years) had the following inclusion criteria: (1) a threshold at 500 Hz between 15 and 30 dB HL, (2) a threshold at 1000 Hz between 20 and 40 dB HL, (3) a three-frequency pure-tone average (500, 1000, and 2000 Hz) of ≤40 dB HL, (4) word-recognition scores in quiet ≥40%, and (5) no history of middle ear or retrocochlear pathology as determined by an audiologic evaluation. Data Collection and Analysis: The speech materials were presented bilaterally in the following order: (1) the SPRINT at 50 dB HL, (2) two half lists of NU-6 words in quiet at 60 dB HL and 80 dB HL, and (3) the two 35-word lists of the WIN materials with the multitalker babble fixed at 60 dB HL. Data collection occurred during a 40-60 minute session. Recognition performances on each stimulus word were analyzed. Results: The listeners with normal hearing obtained 92.5% correct on the SPRINT with a 50% point on the WIN of 2.7 dB S/N. The listeners with hearing loss obtained 65.3% correct on the SPRINT and a WIN 50% point at 12.0 dB S/N. The SPRINT and WIN were significantly correlated (r = -0.81, p < .01), indicating that the SPRINT had good concurrent validity. The high-frequency, pure-tone average (1000, 2000, 4000 Hz) had higher correlations with the SPRINT, WIN, and NU-6 in quiet than did the traditional three-frequency pure-tone average (500, 1000, 2000 Hz). Conclusions: Graphically and numerically the SPRINT and WIN were highly related, which is indicative of good concurrent validity of the SPRINT.

Purpose: To analyze the 50% correct recognition data that were from the Wilson et al (this issue) study and that were obtained from 24 listeners with normal hearing; also to examine whether acoustic, phonetic, or lexical variables can predict recognition performance for monosyllabic words presented in speech-spectrum noise. Research Design: The specific variables are as follows: (a) acoustic variables (i.e., effective root-mean-square sound pressure level, duration), (b) phonetic variables (i.e., consonant features such as manner, place, and voicing for initial and final phonemes; vowel phonemes), and (c) lexical variables (i.e., word frequency, word familiarity, neighborhood density, neighborhood frequency). Data Collection and Analysis: The descriptive, correlational study will examine the influence of acoustic, phonetic, and lexical variables on speech recognition in noise performance. Results: Regression analysis demonstrated that 45% of the variance in the 50% point was accounted for by acoustic and phonetic variables whereas only 3% of the variance was accounted for by lexical variables. These findings suggest that monosyllabic word-recognition-in-noise is more dependent on bottom-up processing than on top-down processing. Conclusions: The results suggest that when speech-in-noise testing is used in a pre- and post-hearing-aid-fitting format, the use of monosyllabic words may be sensitive to changes in audibility resulting from amplification.

Background: So that portions of the classic Miller, Heise, and Lichten (1951) study could be replicated, new recorded versions of the words and digits were made because none of the three common monosyllabic word lists (PAL PB-50, CID W-22, and NU-6) contained the 9 monosyllabic digits (1-10, excluding 7) that were used by Miller et al. It is well established that different psychometric characteristics have been observed for different lists and even for the same materials spoken by different speakers. The decision was made to record four lists of each of the three monosyllabic word sets, the monosyllabic digits not included in the three sets of word lists, and the CID W-1 spondaic words. A professional female speaker with a General American dialect recorded the materials during four recording sessions within a 2-week interval. The recording order of the 582 words was random. Purpose: To determine - on listeners with normal hearing - the psychometric properties of the five speech materials presented in speech-spectrum noise. Research Design: A quasi-experimental, repeated-measures design was used. Study Sample: Twenty-four young adult listeners (M = 23 years) with normal pure-tone thresholds (≤20-dB HL at 250 to 8000 Hz) participated. The participants were university students who were unfamiliar with the test materials. Data Collection and Analysis: The 582 words were presented at four signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs; -7-, -2-, 3-, and 8-dB) in speech-spectrum noise fixed at 72-dB SPL. Although the main metric of interest was the 50% point on the function for each word established with the Spearman-Kärber equation (Finney, 1952), the percentage correct on each word at each SNR was evaluated. The psychometric characteristics of the PB-50, CID W-22, and NU-6 monosyllabic word lists were compared with one another, with the CID W-1 spondaic words, and with the 9 monosyllabic digits. Results: Recognition performance on the four lists within each of the three monosyllabic word materials were equivalent, ±0.4 dB. Likewise, word-recognition performance on the PB-50, W-22, and NU-6 word lists were equivalent, ±0.2 dB. The mean recognition performance at the 50% point with the 36 W-1 spondaic words was ∼6.2 dB lower than the 50% point with the monosyllabic words. Recognition performance on the monosyllabic digits was 1-2 dB better than mean performance on the monosyllabic words. Conclusions: Word-recognition performances on the three sets of materials (PB-50, CID W-22, and NU-6) were equivalent, as were the performances on the four lists that make up each of the three materials. Phonetic/phonemic balance does not appear to be an important consideration in the compilation of word-recognition lists used to evaluate the ability of listeners to understand speech. A companion paper examines the acoustic, phonetic/phonological, and lexical variables that may predict the relative ease or difficulty for which these monosyllable words were recognized in noise (McArdle and Wilson, this issue).

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine in listeners with normal hearing and listeners with sensorineural hearing loss the within- and between-group differences obtained with 4 commonly available speech-in-noise protocols. Method: Recognition performances by 24 listeners with normal hearing and 72 listeners with sensorineural hearing loss were compared for 4 speech-in-noise protocols that varied with respect to the amount of contextual cues conveyed in the target signal. The protocols studied included the Bamford-Kowal-Bench Speech-in-Noise Test (BKB-SIN; Etymōtic Research, 2005; J. Bench, A. Kowal, & J. Bamford, 1979; P. Niquette et al., 2003), the Quick Speech-in-Noise Test (QuickSIN; M. C. Killion, P. A. Niquette, G. I. Gudmundsen, L. J. Revit, & S. Banerjee, 2004), and the Words-in-Noise test (WIN; R. H. Wilson, 2003; R. H. Wilson & C. A. Burks, 2005), each of which used multitalker babble and a modified method of constants, as well as the Hearing in Noise Test (HINT; M. Nilsson, S. Soli, & J. Sullivan, 1994), which used speech-spectrum noise and an adaptive psychophysical procedure. Results: The 50% points for the listeners with normal hearing were in the 1- to 4-dB signal-to-babble ratio (S/B) range and for the listeners with hearing loss in the 5- to 14-dB S/B range. Separation between groups was least with the BKB-SIN and HINT (4-6 dB) and most with the QuickSIN and WIN (8-10 dB). Conclusion: The QuickSIN and WIN materials are more sensitive measures of recognition performance in background noise than are the BKB-SIN and HINT materials.

The purpose of this study was to examine the feasibility of using digit triplets in multitalker babble as a paradigm to measure the ability of patients to understand speech in background noise. Nine digits (one to ten, excluding seven) were randomized into triplet sets and embedded in multitalker babble at 6- to -20-dB signal-to-babble (S/B) ratios. Recognition performances by 24 listeners with normal hearing and 48 listeners with sensorineural hearing loss were measured for the digit triplets and for monosyllabic words both in multitalker babble presented at 80-dB SPL. There was essentially no overlap between the distributions of performances by the two groups of listeners on either of the materials. For both groups of listeners, the difference between performances on the materials at the 50% point was approximately 18 dB. Both the word and digit materials in a background of multitalker babble are sensitive to the inabilities of listeners with hearing loss to understand speech in background noise.

The dissertation lays the foundations for a naturalistic account of word meaning capable of addressing the conflicting intuitions that word meanings are both “out there”, world-involving and objective (the “objectivist” intuition) and in the heads of speakers, i.e. cognitive and perspectival (the “mentalist” intuition). The strong naturalization constraint endorsed in this project has it that the sought-after syncretic notion of word meaning must be nonmysterious and constitute a potential object for the natural sciences. The objectivist intuition is discussed within the framework of semantic externalism and the theory of semantic deference. Whereas the importance of the phenomenon of semantic deference (i.e. the fact that speakers defer to semantic standards for the fixation of the meaning of their words) is recognized, it is shown that taking the normativity of meaning evidenced by semantic deference at face value leads to embracing a form of meaning objectivism that is incompatible with naturalism. On the one hand, the objectivist/externalist commitment to independent meaning-determining realities could be stronger than the commitments actually undertaken by the natural sciences themselves. On the other hand, the degree of idealization inherent in the objectivist account makes it oddly disconnected from and ultimately irrelevant to actual linguistic practice. However, usage-based accounts – which have meanings determined by the way words are actually used rather than determined “from outside” – notoriously struggle to provide a satisfactory account of the normativity of meaning. The proposed move consists in biting the bullet and treating the inherent normativity of meaning as a form of cognitive illusion, albeit an unavoidable illusion and one which must be taken seriously in order to explain the properties of linguistic understanding. A strictly usage-based account is shown to be viable and even to be able to account for the objectivist explanandum, once it is coupled with biological functionalism. Word meanings “out there” turn out to be viable natural objects, yet quite unlike the apparent objects of our pre-theoretical intuitions. “Complete”, world-involving word meanings are complex functional kinds (like organs or artifacts) constituted (rather than determined) by speakers’ actual dispositions and relevant environmental factors. As such, complete meanings – whether at the communal level (conventional meanings) or at the level of the individual speaker (idiosyncratic patterns of use) – are essentially opaque to speakers and can only be identified from a theoretical point of view on the basis of functional considerations. Moreover, the environmental factors intuitively corresponding to the traditional notion of objective reference or extension cannot be considered independently of the other internal and relational meaning-constitutive factors. The view of meaning defended is thus supportive of a certain form of anti-realism, where reference and truth are relativized to evolved interests, yet it is not supportive of any global form of anti-realism, for the presuppositions of biological normativity still provide a realist anchor to natural-language meanings. From this theoretical perspective, the mentalist intuition is taken to concern the internal, cognitive sub-components of complete meanings. Internal meanings are the cognitive kinds associated with word types (lexical meanings) or word tokens (ways in which words are understood/interpreted on an occasion of use). It is argued that internal meanings – whether stable or occasion-specific – have an irreducible abstract dimension for which no naturalistically plausible worldly counterpart is to be found. The experience of aboutness of the concepts intuitively encoded and expressed by words is again to be treated as a cognitive illusion, on a par with the illusion of the inherent normativity of word meaning. However, the abstract nature of internal meanings explains some of the key properties of linguistic understanding – aboutness, compositionality, co-reference – without which productive thought and linguistic communication would be impossible. The proposed account thus makes room for compositional-extensional semantics and shared understanding, as long as these are fully internalized. The connection with the external components of complete meanings is indirect, mediated by procedures whose workings are to a large extent opaque to users. The main consequence of the proposed framework is the incommensurability of internal meaning and complete meaning, and therefore a rejection of the possibility of an articulation of internal meaning and complete meaning compatible with the commonsense view from which traditional accounts of semantic deference and semantic externalism are built.Cette thèse jette les bases d’une théorie naturaliste de la signification des mots à même de rendre compte de deux intuitions en apparence conflictuelles :d’une part, l’intuition selon laquelle les significations des mots ont une existence extérieure objective et impliquent le monde (l’intuition « objectiviste ») ;d’autre part, l’intuition selon laquelle les significations sont dans la tête des locuteurs, c’est-à-dire correspondent à des réalités cognitives et perspectivales (l’intuition « mentaliste »). La contrainte naturaliste assumée dans ce projet veut que la notion syncrétique de signification que l’on cherche à développer puisse constituer un objet potentiel d’investigation pour les sciences naturelles, c’est-à-dire qu’elle soit, au moins en principe, localisable dans le monde naturel. L’intuition objectiviste est débattue dans le cadre de l’externalisme sémantique et de la théorie de la déférence sémantique. Bien que l’importance du phénomène de la déférence sémantique (le fait que les locuteurs défèrent à des standards sémantiques pour la fixation de la signification des mots qu’ils emploient) soit pleinement reconnue, l’argument poursuivi mène à la conclusion que la normativité de la signification que semble imposer la déférence sémantique ne doit pas être prise pour argent comptant, sous peine d’épouser une forme d’objectivisme de la signification incompatible avec le projet de naturalisation stricte. D’une part, l’engagement ontologique objectiviste/externaliste vis-à-vis de réalités indépendantes déterminant les significations pourrait être plus fort que les engagements ontologiques implicites des sciences naturelles elles-mêmes. D’autre part, le degré d’idéalisation propre au point de vue objectiviste le rend étrangement détaché de la pratique linguistique effective, et en définitive sans pertinence pour rendre compte de celle-ci. Cela étant dit, les théories fondées sur l’usage – pour lesquelles les significations sont déterminées par la façon dont les mots sont effectivement employés plutôt que déterminées « de l’extérieur » – sont en général critiquées pour leur incapacité à rendre compte de la normativité de la signification. La proposition que fait la thèse consiste à assumer cette conséquence d’une théorie fondée sur l’usage et à considérer la normativité intrinsèque de la signification comme une forme d’illusion cognitive, bien qu’une illusion inévitable et devant être prise au sérieux s’il s’agit d’expliquer les propriétés remarquables de la compréhension linguistique. Une théorie strictement fondée sur l’usage est viable et même capable de rendre compte de l’intuition objectiviste, une fois que cette théorie est couplée avec un fonctionnalisme biologique. Les significations « extérieures » des mots sont bien des objets naturalisables, quoique fort différents des objets apparents de nos intuitions pré-théoriques. Les significations « complètes », c’est-à-dire impliquant le monde, correspondent à des espèces fonctionnelles complexes (à la manière des organes ou des artéfacts) qui sont constituées (plutôt que déterminées) par les dispositions effectives des locuteurs et les facteurs environnementaux pertinents. En tant que telles, les significations complètes – que ce soit au niveau de la communauté linguistique (significations conventionnelles) ou au niveau du locuteur individuel (usages idiosyncrasiques) – sont fondamentalement opaques pour les locuteurs et ne peuvent être identifiées qu’à partir d’un point de vue théorique externe et sur base de considérations fonctionnelles. En outre, les facteurs environnementaux correspondant intuitivement à la notion traditionnelle de référence ou d’extension objective ne peuvent être considérés indépendamment des autres facteurs internes et relationnels constitutifs de la signification. La théorie de la signification défendue suggère donc une certaine forme d’anti-réalisme, dans lequel la référence et la vérité sont relativisées à des intérêts spécifiques produits par l’évolution naturelle. Cette théorie ne sert pour autant guère d’appui à un quelconque anti-réalisme global, car les présupposés de la normativité biologique continuent à fournir un ancrage réaliste aux significations linguistiques. Une fois cette perspective théorique sur les significations impliquant le monde adoptée, on fait la supposition que l’intuition mentaliste concerne les sous-composantes internes et cognitives des significations complètes. Les significations internes sont les espèces cognitives associées avec les types lexicaux (significations lexicales) et avec les tokens lexicaux (façons dont les mots sont compris/interprétés lorsqu’ils sont employés). Il est avancé que les significations internes – qu’elles soient stables ou propres à une occasion d’usage – ont une composante abstraite irréductible à laquelle ne correspond aucune contrepartie mondaine acceptable d’un point de vue naturaliste. L’expérience de l’ « être-à-propos » (aboutness) des concepts intuitivement encodés et exprimés par les mots doit encore une fois être considérée comme une illusion cognitive, à l’instar de l’illusion de la normativité intrinsèque de la signification. Cependant, la nature abstraite des significations internes explique certaines des propriétés centrales de la compréhension linguistique – être-à-propos, compositionnalité, co-référence – sans lesquelles la pensée productive et la communication proprement linguistique seraient impossibles. La théorie proposée fait donc une place à la sémantique compositionnelle-extensionnelle et à la compréhension partagée, pour autant que celles-ci soient complètement internalisées. La connexion avec les composantes externes des significations complètes est indirecte, médiée par des procédures dont le fonctionnement est en grande partie opaque aux utilisateurs du langage. La conséquence principale du cadre proposé est l’incommensurabilité de la signification interne et de la signification complète et, partant, le rejet de la possibilité d’une articulation entre les deux types de signification qui soit compatible avec le point de vue de sens commun à partir duquel sont construites les théories traditionnelles de la déférence sémantique et de l’externalisme sémantique. / Doctorat en Langues et lettres / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

The stock market undergoes many fluctuations on a daily basis. These changes can be challenging to anticipate. Understanding such volatility are beneficial to investors as it empowers them to make inform decisions to avoid losses and invest when opportunities are predicted to earn funds. The objective of this research is to use text mining and data mining techniques to discover the relationship between news articles and stock prices fluctuations. There are a variety of sources for news articles, including Bloomberg, Google Finance, Yahoo Finance, Factiva, Thompson Routers, and Twitter. In our research, we use Factive and Intrinio news databases. These databases provide daily analytical articles about the general stock market, as well as daily changes in stock prices. The focus of this research is on understanding the news articles which influence stock prices. We believe that different types of stocks in the market behave differently, and news articles could provide indications on different stock price movements. The goal of this research is to create a framework that uses text mining and data mining algorithms to correlate different types of news articles with stock fluctuations to predict whether to “Buy”, “Sell”, or “Hold” a specific stock. We train Doc2Vec models on 1GB of financial news from Factiva to convert news articles into vectors of 100 dimensions. After preprocessing the data, including labeling and balancing the data, we build five predictive models, namely Neural Networks, SVM, Decision Tree, KNN, and Random Forest to predict stock movements (Buy, Sell, or Hold). We evaluate the performances of the predictive models in terms of accuracy and area under the ROC. We conclude that SVM provides the best performance among the five models to predict the stock movement.

The Internet allows customers to share their experiences with, and opinions on, goods and services with other customers, that is, to engage in e-WOM communication. This paper consists of two major sections. The aim of the first one is to define the main e-WOM behaviour characteristics of Czech consumers and their motivations for transmission and exposure e-WOM behaviour. For this purpose, a questionnaire survey (n = 220) is conducted with a target group of people aged 16 to 54 years. The results indicate that the main reasons for exposure e-WOM behaviour are saving decision-making time, making better buying decisions, reducing cognitive dissonance and advice seeking when having product issues. In the case of transmission e-WOM behaviour, consumers are motivated by altruistic reasons, benefits of collective power and venting negative feelings. The second, experimental, section of this work examines the consumer's attention depending firstly on the e-WOM valence, the structural elements and the brand type, and secondly on the different characteristics of online reviews. In the first place, the results of the eye-tracking research (n = 24) illustrate a statistically significant impact of the interaction between the brand type and the e-WOM valence on consumer attention and in the second place it shows the dominance of the reviewer's name in attracting consumer attention. An in-depth interview is conducted in order to enlighten the results of eye-tracking research. Academic and managerial implications are discussed.

The purpose of this study was to analyze the word processing procedures in the offices of the President and Provost at Utah State University. Seven secretaries participated in the survey by completing a questionnaire and keeping a record of all typing and nontyping tasks performed during two nonconsecutive weeks. A combined total of 9035 lines (average 12 words per line) of typing was completed by all workers. Ninety-nine percent of the typing was classified as text in format and originated in one of several ways including: copy type, shorthand, revision, self composition, machine dictation, and longhand. Recommendations based on the data collected were made regarding the word processing system analyzed. Recommendations included the implementation of a semi-consolidated word processing system and the addition of standardized dictating equipment and a magnetic medium typewriter.